


So Tired of This Same Old Song and Dance

by Solena2



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Aborted Undertale Genocide Run, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Neither Frisk nor Chara is Solely Responsible for the Genocide Run, One Shot, POV Sans (Undertale), Sans (Undertale) Doesn't Remember Resets, Sans (Undertale) Remembers Resets, Undertale Genocide Route, it makes sense in context i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:00:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25281262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solena2/pseuds/Solena2
Summary: Faced with the end of the world, Sans can't afford not to care anymore. He'd love to analyze the anomaly's motives, would love to ask them why they would do this, but...It doesn't really matter, does it? They've made their choice.And he already knows, anyway.
Relationships: Chara & Frisk (Undertale), Frisk & Sans (Undertale)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36





	So Tired of This Same Old Song and Dance

**Author's Note:**

> Man, this took forever to write. I'll never understand how people can pop out 10k in a night.

Sans stood still as a statue in a golden hall.

A few feet away was a human, staring directly at him with no expression at all.

Now normally, Sans wasn’t much more than a comedian, yeah? He told shitty jokes and put whoopie cushions on people’s seats, like the juvenile asshole he was. And see, he’d always put a lot of stock in his ability to read the audience, y’know?

No one knew faces like Sans, and the one on this kid…

He wished he could say they looked happy. He wished he could pretend that they were just some sadistic murderer out for EXP, too far gone to feel guilt for what they’d done, but…

They didn’t look any kind of joyful, right then. Being honest, they just looked kind of broken. It wasn’t the face of a hardened killer, it was the face of a terrified child, someone who’d done things they regretted, but couldn’t see another way out.

Sans wished he could say he gave a damn.

But with the amount of dust on this kid’s hands, and what would happen if he stayed out of it?

With the whole world in the balance, he just couldn’t afford not to care anymore.

His face betraying none of his thoughts, as usual, he started talking.

“heya,” Might as well start with a friendly greeting, right? 

“you’ve been busy, huh?” Understatement was a fine art, and one he’d had a long time to practice. Well, according to his notes, anyway. They were always pretty helpful when it came to stuff like this.

Sans paused for a moment, allowing the tension a few seconds to build, before continuing.

“so, i’ve got a question for ya,” He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted an answer, but he suspected he’d get one anyway, even if he didn’t give the human a chance to say anything.

“do you think even the worst person can change…?” They flinched.

“that everyone can be a good person, if they just try?” For a fraction of a second that he wished he could pretend he’d imagined, their mouth wobbled. They got the rogue muscle back under control soon enough, though, and they bit their lip, looking down. Silently, they shook their head and took a step forward.

Sans laughed, and it was a hollow, broken thing. Just like him, whaddaya know?

“all right,” He supposed the olive branch had been doomed from the start, really. That sort of stuff had always been more his bro’s thing, and, well. 

“well, here’s a better question,” The human looked mildly dubious, probably expecting him to ask something dumb, like why they’d done all this. He wouldn’t ask that, though. Not when it was so obvious.

Sans allowed his eyes to go dark, and stared at the human with the full force of his judgemental gaze.

“do you wanna have a bad time?” They looked startled for a moment, apparently not having expected the change in tune. Fair enough, he supposed. The rare times where he got truly serious tended to surprise a lot of people.

“cause if you take another step forward…” Somewhere in him, he hoped they wouldn’t. Selfish as it was, he really would let them leave, if they turned around now.

He knew they wouldn’t, though.

“you are REALLY not going to like what happens next,” For a moment, the anomaly appeared introspective. Then, after a brief moment of hesitation, they nodded and stepped forward. 

Seemed like he had a glutton for punishment on his hands.

“welp,” He’d tried.

“sorry, old lady,” The worst thing of all, he thought, was that he really was. He’d never seen her in person, had never even asked her name, but he had wanted so badly to do that one thing for her. To take just one worry from her chest. He hadn’t planned to actively defend the kid, no, but killing them himself after swearing to protect them? It just left a bad taste in his mouth.

“this is why i never make promises,” Because he never seems to be able to keep them. Ha, he’s so fucking pathetic. All he’d planned to do with the promise was use it as an excuse not to kill whatever snot nosed brat fell next, and he couldn’t even get that right. You’d think such a lazy guy would excel in not doing things, but hey! Apparently not!

Grinning like always, he started the battle.

“it’s a beautiful day outside,” It really was, and the way the sunlight slanted through the large windows in the hall made this place beautiful too. A shame he was about to bathe the scene in blood.

“birds are singing,” They weren’t, not in a way he or the anomaly’d be able to hear, but he’d found a cool button in the dump a while ago that played bird noises when you pushed it. 

“flowers are blooming...” He was mostly talking about one flower in particular, one that had been helping them out pretty consistently. Flowey knew what would happen if the kid didn’t stop, but he’d never been able to deny his old friend, seemingly.

“on days like these, kids like you…” Sans readied his magic.

“should be burning in hell,” He turned their SOUL blue and slammed it down, before summoning a wall of bones. The human didn’t dodge in time. He changed them back to red, and gave them a needle to thread, which they figured out soon enough. After a few seconds of that, he brought out the blasters.

The sound of their SOUL shattering was… incredibly satisfying.

Hurriedly, he brought out his phone and opened his notes. He’d prepared a tally for the human’s deaths beforehand, so all he had to do was add a mark. Good thing, too, because he wasn’t really given time to do more than that.

The sensation of a LOAD was one he was glad he could forget. From his notes, he suspected turning to dust didn’t feel all that different, and it made sense. Effectively, the LOAD grabbed the whole world and forcibly moved it back to where it had been the last time the anomaly used a SAVE point. 

It hurt rather a lot.  
\--

Sans stood still as a statue in a golden hall.

A few feet away was a human, staring directly at him with no expression at all.  
Now normally, Sans was just a comedian, yeah? He told shitty jokes and put red dye on telescope lenses, like the juvenile asshole he was. And see, he’d always put a lot of stock in his ability to read the audience, y’know?

No one knew faces like Sans, and the one on this kid…

Call him a slacker all you like, but he was pretty sure he’d done his job this time.

“heya,” Might as well start it off with a friendly greeting, right?

“you look frustrated about something,” Their eyes widened.

“guess i’m pretty good at my job, huh?” They hadn’t expected that, he could tell. They took a full step back in what looked like pure shock, and his smile became just a bit less forced.

“it’s a beautiful day outside,” It really was. It was beautiful in the hall, too, but he knew well that it was only an illusion. He knew that if he tried to imagine what it looked like with blood everywhere and a broken body on the floor, he’d get a more accurate picture than his mind alone could summon.

“birds are singing,” They weren’t, not as far as he or the human could hear, but he pushed a cool button he’d found at the dump that made bird noises and it was almost as good.

“flowers are blooming…” He was mostly referring to one flower in particular, of course. A flower that had been helping the anomaly behind the scenes the whole time.

Sans didn’t think Flowey wanted the world to end, really. Damn weed just never learned how to say no to people he liked, short as that list was, now.

“on days like these, kids like you…” Not that there were all that many kids like them, he thought, readying his magic.

“should be burning in hell,” He turned their SOUL blue, slamming it down before summoning a wall of bones. They dodged, seemingly having expected it, but he still got them with the next attack, and they died again on the blasters.

Wait, again? Ah, well, he wasn’t all that surprised that the blasters were what had taken them out. They were his (second) strongest attack, after all.

He put a second tally in his notes, just in time for the LOAD.  
\--

Sans stood still as a statue in a golden hall.

A few feet away was a human, staring directly at him with no expression at all.

Now, normally, Sans wasn’t much more than the town joker, right? He made bad puns and put red dye on telescope lenses, like the juvenile shithead he was. And, well, he’d always been the type to read the audience, yeah?

No one could read faces like Sans could, and the one on this kid…

Heh. He almost felt proud.

“hmm. that expression…” Their expression was pretty blank, really. Most people probably couldn’t have gotten much from it.

“that’s the expression of someone who’s died thrice in a row,” Sans wasn’t most people, though. Microexpressions could tell a lot.

Sans could see quite clearly that this human didn’t want to be here.

He didn’t want to be here either. He wanted to be at home, hanging out with his bro and making terrible jokes, and the reason he couldn’t was standing right in front of him.

Sans paused. This is where he’d take a deep breath, in and out, if he had the lungs to breathe with. He didn’t though, so he just stood there, utterly still and as silent as the grave.

“hey, what comes after “thrice”, anyway?” Quice, maybe? He wasn’t sure.

“wanna help me find out?” He asked, starting the battle.

“it’s a beautiful day outside,” Outside, maybe, but in here he swore he saw flashes of red on the edges of his vision whenever he moved too fast. Three times now he’d seen this human splattered against the golden pillars, and all because of him.

“birds are singing,” They weren’t, but Sans was good at cheating for stuff like that.

“flowers are blooming…” That was one bonus, he supposed. At least all the dust everywhere wouldn’t hurt Asgore’s garden.

“on days like these,” Sans fervently hoped that a day like this would never happen again.

“kids like you…” he readied his magic, and it came just a beat before it was called, probably due to how many times he’d done this already.

“should be burning in hell,” He turned their SOUL blue, slamming it down before summoning a wall of bones. They dodged reflexively, clearly used to the pattern. He still got them a little with his next attack, but they dodged most of the blasters he sent afterwards, and by the end of the turn, they were still alive.

Something in him said that this was new.

“huh. always wondered why people never use their strongest attack first,” It wasn’t actually his strongest attack, of course. Nothing compared to one of his other ones, but it was certainly one of his most powerful.

The human looked vaguely stunned at their survival, and stared at him with something like awe. 

They waited a long almost minute in between turns, just catching their breath.

They reached for FIGHT. Almost robotically, they raised their knife arm and swung it at him, the movement slow but the intent behind it palpable.

Stronger monsters than Sans would die to one hit from that. Stronger monsters had died.

Sans dodged. It was against the rules, but he didn’t really give a shit, in all honesty.

The anomaly stared blankly. They looked from him to their knife and back like they couldn’t comprehend what he’d just done, and Sans would have grinned if he weren’t already.

“what? you think i’m just gonna stand there and take it?” Sans would bet money that that was exactly what they’d thought.

His next attack killed them, and he marked another tally in his phone before the world stuttered and the anomaly went back.  
\--

Sans stood still as a statue in a golden hall.

A few feet away was a human, staring directly at him with no expression at all.

Now, normally, Sans was just a comedian. He sold fried snow and made fart jokes like the juvenile he was. And he’d always been the sort to read the audience, right?

No one knew faces like Sans, and the one on this kid…

He didn’t think he could count any higher without tipping his hand just a bit more than he’d like.

“hmm. that expression…” Now, Sans was really good at reading expressions, but even he couldn’t count deaths higher than three based on body language alone.

Thankfully, the anomaly always took a few moments to get far enough into the hall that he appeared before them. So Sans used these precious extra seconds to check his tally.

Was this human ever going to give up?

“that’s the expression of someone who’s died eleven times in a row,” Which meant Sans was officially deadlier than Undyne, because her tally only had ten marks. He’d feel accomplished, if the accomplishment weren’t murder.

“well, give or take,” He wondered whether they believed him for that, but supposed that it didn’t really matter. Oh, hey! Just like this fight!

“there’s nuance to this stuff,” How many times would he kill them before they won? He couldn’t dodge forever, and they both knew it, but how long would it take? How long would this pointless, pointless last stand be dragged out for?

“don’t think i’ll be able to count very well from here,” How long could he delay the end of the world?

“count for me, ok?” The only hope he had was that somehow, he could break this human’s resolve. That he could get them to give up and QUIT.

“we’ll start from twelve,” It wasn’t much of a hope at all, really. He started the fight.

“it’s a beautiful day outside,” It wasn’t actually day at all, really. He could tell by the way the light slanted through the massive windows that on the surface, the sun was just starting to set. 

“birds are singing, flowers are blooming…” If he were Asgore, he’d say that it was perfect weather for a game of catch. It was, too, but he didn’t really care.

“on days like these, kids like you…” Both him and the human knew what would come next. They raised their knife and he readied his magic.

“should be burning in hell,” They never would, though. Regardless of whether they deserved it, a kid who couldn’t die wouldn’t be entering the afterlife anytime soon.

Speaking of dying, they did that in the first turn. Something that was almost a memory told him that that hadn’t happened in a while.

He marked down a tally in his notes just in time for the LOAD.  
\--

Sans stood still as a statue in a golden hall.

A few feet away was a human, staring directly at him with no expression at all.

He’d looked at the tally marks he’d taken down each time he’d killed them, but they’d been too many to count in the few seconds he’d had to do so.

“let’s just get to the point,” How many times he’d said those very words, he simply didn’t know.

“it’s a beautiful day outside,” Outside, sure. Sans suspected that this hall would never truly look beautiful to him again, though. Not when he knew exactly the way blood splatter would look on the windows.

“birds are singing, flowers are blooming…” Heh, Flowey must be bored as hell, with all these LOADs. The thought was comforting.

“on days like these, kids like you…” The anomaly didn’t bother to emote any more. They both knew what happened next.

“should be burning in hell,” He turned their SOUL blue and slammed it down, summoning a wall of bones. The human dodged it and everything else he threw at them with the ease of practice.

“anyway, as i was saying, it’s a nice day out. why not relax and take a load off?” He fucking wished this kid would relax.

“ready?” They were, maybe, but Sans wasn’t. Not by far.

“here we go,” Didn’t mean he wouldn’t do it anyway, of course.

The anomaly launched forward, delivering a lightning fast strike to the space where he’d been just a moment ago.

“what? you think i’m just gonna stand there and take it?” They’d probably believed that once, but their face now just looked resigned. Sans attacked, sending sets of bones from both sides for them to jump through. They evaded easily, looking almost bored. Then they attacked again.

“our reports showed a massive anomaly in the timespace continuum. timelines jumping left and right, stopping and starting…” It wasn’t really “our” and it wasn’t really “reports” but they didn’t need to know that. He and the anomaly in question exchanged sticks and stones once more, before he continued.

“until suddenly, everything ends,” At some point, he was pretty sure that line had left shock on the human’s face. That they’d looked baffled for a moment and had taken more damage in his next attack than they might have otherwise.

Now, he doubted they were paying attention to what he was saying at all.

“heh heh heh… that’s your fault, isn’t it?” He felt like Snowdrake’s old man, laughing so much at things that weren’t funny. He sent them a simple attack, just a sea of bones and some safe platforms to jump to. They returned with a slash they obviously hadn’t put their heart into. 

“you can’t understand how this feels,” And that was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it? The center of it all was that once you had control of the timeline, consequences just didn’t exist anymore. And there was the looming fear, too, that only existed for those in the “know” but not in control.

“knowing that one day, without any warning… it’s all going to be reset,” Normal monsters didn’t have one HP. Most would fall down long before they ever reached a number that low. Sans wasn’t normal, though. He’d always been more determined than the average, and he had too many things that were important to him to just give up.

“look, i gave up trying to go back a long time ago,” Well, to give up on life, at least. A lot of other things he’d cared about once had gone on the backburner.

“and getting to the surface doesn’t really appeal anymore, either,” Once, it had. Once, that had been his big hope, that one day, he’d reach the surface and everything would get better. 

He’d stopped hoping a long time ago, though. A lot of people had.

“cause even if we do… we’ll just end up right back here, without any memory of it, right?” 

And all he’d have was his notes, and maybe a photo, to commemorate it. He’d be stuck with flashes of memory and deja vu as his only evidence it wasn’t just some elaborate prank. Cruel world.

“to be blunt… it makes it kind of hard to give it my all,” The anomaly looked guilty for just a moment. Sans wished feeling guilty was enough to get them to stop. Man, if wishes were fishes, right? The human slashed at him, and he dodged.

“...or is that just a poor excuse for being lazy…? hell if i know,” According to some human psychology books he’d found a while ago, he was probably depressed. They’d prescribed a lot of coping mechanisms that only worked for people who could trust time to move in a linear fashion.

“all i know is… seeing what comes next… i can’t afford not to care anymore,” The apocalypse would be enough to get just about anyone off their ass, and Sans was no exception.

He couldn’t keep this up forever, though. He only had to make one mistake to end up dead, and the human could wait literally until the end of time for him to do so. Not that the end of time was all that far off, now.

“ugh... that being said… you, uh, really like swinging that thing around, huh? ...listen,” Sans could tell by the human’s expression that they’d heard this before. Many times, probably. He offered it anyway. For Papyrus. Everyone should get at least a chance to change, right?

“friendship... it’s really great, right? let’s quit fighting,” The anomaly looked him dead in the eyes. They hadn’t done that before, and the newness of the feeling sent ice cold shivers up his spine. 

Then, they smiled. It wasn’t a happy smile, not one that conveyed ‘haha, i killed everyone and we both know you can’t really do anything about it’. He’d have liked if it were that kind of smile, honestly. He was familiar with that kind of smile, even if he hadn’t seen it this time around. There were whole passages in his notes about the kind of being who smiled like that.

Guess that’s why he called them the anomaly, though. Because they just had to be different.

The smile they wore wasn’t Flowey’s, no, but it wasn’t foreign to him, either. It was the selfsame smile he saw on his own face every time he looked in the mirror. It was the smile Papyrus had worn before he went out to face them.

It was a smile that said ‘nothing matters anyway, so why bother?’.

For the nth time, the human reached for FIGHT.

“welp, it was worth a shot. guess you like doing things the hard way, huh?” Time to put his big boy pants on, not for the first time. He held back for the first part of the fight, excluding that first attack, mostly because of the flicker he saw in their eyes and in their resolve each time they’d killed someone.

You could only give someone so many chances though, right? Paps had always said that he believed even the worst person could change.

That anyone could be a good person, if they just tried.

That was the clincher though, wasn’t it? The kid had been given countless opportunities to turn back, to erase what they’d done and start over fresh.

Each time, they’d chosen not to. It didn’t matter why. It didn’t matter what they might have suffered at the hands of other humans or monsters.

Because, suffering or not, they’d chosen to lash out. To continue the cycle of hurt.

Everyone could be a good person, if they tried, and this kid?

They weren’t.

“sounds strange, but before all this i was secretly hoping we could be friends,” He wasn’t sure why he was telling them this, really.

“i always thought the anomaly was doing this cause they were unhappy,” They were unhappy, seemingly, but he’d been driven past the point of caring when his brother had fucking spared them.

“and when they got what they wanted, they would stop all this,” But they never would, would they? For Flowey, what he’d wanted was unreachable, and for this kid… It had become clear a long time ago that want had very little to do with it for them.

“but that’s ridiculous, right?” Fuck, with all this hope he was starting to sound like Papyrus. 

Better get back to being depressed, right? Not that what he said mattered. Just what he did. And what he was doing…

It wasn’t like it had ever stood a chance of working anyway, right? It wasn’t like he’d ever really had a chance to stop them. The anomaly was far too determined for him to be more than a minor annoyance, in the grand scheme of things.

“yeah, you’re the type of person who won’t EVER be happy,” The type of person who did terrible things, assuring themselves all the while that there was no other choice. He’d heard them, standing over a dusty scarf in the snow, murmuring excuses as to why they could never have done anything else.

Sans saw far too many parallels between himself and this human to be comfortable.

And wasn’t that just hilarious? There were seven other humans who could have done this. 

Seven other humans who could have ripped through the underground like a hot knife through butter. He’d met some of them, learned their names and their faces and their SOUL colors.

Why, out of all the humans who could have done this, was it the one who behaved so like him?

And did the satisfaction he knew he’d felt each time he’d killed them make him a masochist?

Damn, now there’s a sick joke.

“you’ll keep consuming timelines over and over until… well,” It was a theorem he’d checked many, many times. Trying to figure out if there was a limit, if the anomaly’s selfish twisting of the very fabric of reality would have some inevitable consequence.

It wouldn’t. He wasn’t sure how to feel, really. It would have been poetic, if the very thing that allowed them to run from the consequences of their actions was the harbinger of the biggest consequence of all.

But this was real life, not some story. 

And Sans had given up on getting any sort of satisfying conclusion a very long time ago.

“hey. take it from me, kid. someday... you gotta learn when to QUIT,” Sans’ mind flitted back to his notes, covered in too many tally marks to count.

“and that day’s TODAY,” Both of them knew full well that it wouldn’t be. He said it anyway, though. With these sorts of things, it was the sentiment that mattered.

“cause... y’see… all this fighting is really tiring me out,” That wasn’t strictly the truth. No, the reality of it was almost the opposite.

Sans had too much determination. 

Because he couldn’t afford to lose here, and he knew it. He couldn’t afford to make a single slip,   
fail to dodge a single strike.

If he did, it was all over.

And the truth of that? It made him determined to win. And that determination…

He only hoped that the human believed the implied lie that it was sweat, because if they realized   
that, slowly but surely, he was melting?

He didn’t want to think about it. Not after what happened to Undyne.

Sans couldn’t keep going like this much longer. His body simply couldn’t take the strain.

“and if you keep pushing me… then i’ll be forced to use my special attack,”

At the mention of it, the human blanched a little. The genuine fear in their expression made him think they hadn’t gotten him to use it yet.

“Yeah, my special attack. sound familiar? well, get ready. cause after the next move, i’m going to use it, so, if you don’t want to see it, now would be a good time to die,” Had that ever worked? Had they ever stuttered and stopped there and then in sheer fear of what he would unleash upon them next?

He was going to go with no.

They’d clearly died to this attack anyway, though. Small mercies.

He could see by the way they timed each jump and dodge perfectly, reacting just a few moments before the attack came. They moved like a dancer, all dips and twirls and leaps and the few times they made a mistake, they recovered faster than someone in that amount of pain should have been able to.

He wondered how long the anomaly had been pressing down the reactions of their body, forcing themselves to keep going through the pain.

With how sparingly they used healing items, he wondered if it was something they’d learned in the underground at all.

The attack reached its end, and they were still alive. Who knows how many runs through, but this was their first time surviving that climactic attack.

Desperately, he rammed their SOUL into the bounding box, his left eye flashing between cyan and gold as he attacked them in a way they couldn’t avoid.

It wasn’t meant to be, though. There were some rules even he couldn’t break, and that was one of them. You couldn’t kill someone when it wasn’t your turn, and his had ended when he’d surrounded them with blasters and fired.

They didn’t know that, though.

He took a few breaths, even though he didn’t strictly need to. He’d always found it relaxing.

“all right. that’s it. it’s time for my special attack. are you ready? here goes nothing,” If Sans kept this up, attacking and dodging and cheating where he could, he suspected he’d just straight up melt.

He only had one HP, and while it usually wasn’t much of a problem, (when you’d lived with it as long as he had, you found workarounds) his body simply couldn’t take all the magic he was channeling through it.

It was like forcing the ocean through a plastic straw. Sooner or later, something would break, and with his body taking the place of the straw in this metaphor… well. Easy enough to fill in the blanks.

The human was looking vaguely baffled at the fact that nothing was happening, and Sans decided to enlighten them.

“yep. that’s right. it’s literally nothing. and it’s not going to be anything, either,” Their eyes widened, and he could see them putting the pieces together.

Sans laughed, but it sounded empty.

“ya get it? i know i can’t beat you. one of your turns... you’re just gonna kill me,” It was a truth he’d come to terms with when he realized he’d have to Judge them guilty.

That was why he played this role, because he could be trusted to fulfill it, no matter the personal cost.

“so, uh. i’ve decided… it’s not gonna BE your turn. ever,” No reason he couldn’t toy with them a little before his inevitable demise, though. 

“i’m just gonna keep having MY turn until you give up,” Both Sans and the human knew that that would never happen. Sans wouldn’t give up either, though. He was determined. (That was the whole damn problem, that he was determined, and yet…)

“even if it means we have to stand here until the end of time. capiche?” Not that the end of time was so far away, now. 

Heh, idioms that referenced the end of the world had stopped meaning anything the moment the anomaly had exited the Ruins with dust on their hands.

That had been the moment where Sans had known, somewhere inside of him, that they wouldn’t stop. He still gave them chances, but…

He’d already known the kid wouldn’t take any of them.

Sans left the human in silence for some time. He could see them watching him, caution evident in every line of their body, in the tense way they held their combative pose, and how they held the knife tight, even now.

Sans knew that knife. He knew who had once held it. He wasn’t sure which of them was holding it now, Chara or the eighth SOUL.

...Eighth child.

The second he’d seen them, he’d seen that they weren’t alone. Seen the spirit that rode them, attached by a thread of pure DT. He didn’t know how or why, but he knew Chara was back, in that moment.

How far they had fallen, in more ways than one. They’d once been heralded as the Angel, come to free the monsters from their imprisonment.

They’d tried to play the role out, too, when they and Asriel went to the surface. (Sans didn’t think anyone else knew how that had really played out, but Flowey had told him in one of his many RESETs and Sans had written it his notes, carefully keeping his record secret.)

(Flowey had told Sans a lot of things he didn’t think Sans still knew)

Sans wondered whether Chara or the new human had been the one to first kill someone.

(It was Chara when they’d killed themselves, but after the final fall, who?)

He could see from the way they moved now, though, that control was shared. Neither human was innocent of wrongdoing, and LOVE stained them both the same.

He decided it was time to speak once more, hoping it would exorcise such thoughts from his mind. 

“you’ll get bored eventually. if you haven’t gotten bored already, i mean. and then, you’ll finally quit,” He didn’t think he’d ever seen them look bored, even when they were spending ages flushing every last monster out of hiding. He’d seen them look introspective, though, and there was always the hope that forcing them to sit still for a few minutes would give their conscience time to catch up with them.

He could see that happening, at least a little. They’d been blank during the fight, dodging and attacking mostly by rote, probably due to how many times they’d already gone through it.

Now, though, he could see the guilt taking root in their eyes once more.

“i know your type. you’re, uh, very determined, aren’t you?” Understatement of the fucking century, right there. If they were a monster, that kind of concentration would melt them on the spot. Pity. 

“you’ll never give up, even if there’s, uh… absolutely NO benefit to persevering whatsoever,” He could tell they didn’t have a plan beyond killing every monster they saw.   
They’d really gotten into their groove here, killing every single person they could locate.

“if i can make that clear,” He’d ask them what they expected to gain from this, but it was obvious, wasn’t it? They wanted to live.

And wasn’t that just the greatest joke of all, the single person who death couldn’t touch, afraid of being killed. He was laughing so hard he wanted to cry.

“no matter what, you’ll just keep going, not out of any desire for good or evil…” He didn’t remember, but he’d read in his notes that in his early runs, Flowey had devoted his entire being to finding the ‘best ending’. Not because he actually cared, of course. Flowey couldn’t care about much of anything, but because he’d thought he was supposed to. That when he helped everyone, he’d be able to feel again, as some sort of karmic reward.

Apparently, the first place his mind had gone when he realized he couldn’t care was that he was being punished for being too weak to kill the humans who attacked him.

“but just because you think you can. and because you “can”... ...you “have to”,” He knew intimately the series of justifications running through the anomaly’s mind right now. He’d heard them from Alphys, from Asgore, from Toriel, from Flowey…

He’d heard them most of all from himself, in the end. When you were the only person who could do something, or when your back was pressed against the wall, there were a lot of people who would do terrible, terrible things simply because they’d successfully convinced themselves that they had no other choice.

That’s the thing though, right? There’s always another option. There aren’t always any good options, there aren’t always any satisfying ones, but there’s never no choice at all.

Just take Sans. If he’d wanted, he could’ve taken his brother and peaced out the moment he saw a human with LV. He’d had that choice.

There was always another option.

“but now, you’ve reached the end. there is nothing left for you now,” There was nothing left for anyone now, really. Just dust and half remembered bloodstains.

“so, uh, in my personal opinion…” Not his professional opinion. Not the carefully considered words that slipped from his mind to his mouth to the air with all the weight of lead.

No, this wasn’t official advice, given by the Judge to a seeking citizen. This was advice from Sans. A suggestion from one broken person to another, given because he was so, so tired of all of this, so exhausted each time he looked at the face of the anomaly and saw his own reflection.

“the most “determined” thing you can do here? is to completely give up and...” He yawned involuntarily, the magical overload beginning to catch up with him. “do literally anything else,” 

That would be the best outcome, he thought, if this human followed in his footsteps. If they saw what they’d done and let it break them into a million little pieces, and then picked themselves up and changed direction.

One could only hope, right?

Sans could feel his energy slipping away. From some old books he’d read a long time ago, he had reason to believe it was comparable to the end of an adrenaline high for a human. He could see the same happening to them, could see the bone deep (heh) exhaustion creeping up on them.

His eyes slid shut, just a bit, before he forced them open. He knew it was only a matter of time before he passed out, though. One couldn’t put on the kind of magical display he just had without some consequences.

Like glaciers creeping through ancient mountain valleys, his eyelids wandered down.

It was nice, to close his eyes. Nicer than anything else he’d felt that day.

He heard the whistle of the knife through the air and moved with a speed that would have dazzled Papyrus.

If Papyrus weren’t dead, that is.

“heh. didya really think you would be able-” His eyelights tracked the motion of the second strike. He watched it come down, unable to summon enough will to dodge again.

It ripped through his ribs violently, leaving a clean slice where his bones should have shattered. 

The intent powering the blow was intense enough to bring him to his knees even without the blinding pain that derailed his train of thought more effectively than anything he’d ever felt.

Sans had never died before, see. He’d always been too devoted to his brother and his duty to do it himself, and Flowey had never quite managed to get past him.

He brought a gloved hand to his chest, feeling the slice through cloth and bone and-

Was that wet? 

He looked down to see his hand and his jacket covered in red. Covered in… determination?

Sans knew for a fact that neither the amalgamates nor Undyne had leaked liquid DT at any point. It shouldn’t even have been possible.

But there it was. 

Another point for the ‘skeletons are weird’ column, he supposed.

Why wasn’t he dead? Why wasn’t he dying? Was he going to end up like the amalgamates, unable to escape his mortality no matter what he did?

...Wow. Sucky. 

“so…” He changed his mind on how to finish the sentence halfway through. The human had won. He was done.

“...guess that’s it, huh?” He was just going to… leave. Let them do what they wanted. He obviously couldn’t stop them, so why bother to continue, right? Miraculously alive or not, he still didn’t have it in him to keep fighting.

Sans was just out of fucks to give.

“just... don’t say i didn’t warn you,” He’d done his job as well as could be expected. Hell, he’d gone above and beyond for it. 

“welp. i’m going to grillby’s,” He limped out of the human’s sight, moving slower than he’d have liked to.

“papyrus, do you want anything?” He hoped that somewhere, somehow, his brother was listening and yelling at him about grease.

The battle ended.

The human stared blankly ahead for a moment, before looking down at their dust covered hands. With an expression that could only be described as ‘numb’, they left the hall.

Sans didn’t follow.

He took out his phone, and carefully noted that the anomaly had been victorious.

Then, he grabbed a bottle of ketchup from his inventory and carefully didn’t notice the similarity between the red of the fruit paste and the red of the chemical still oozing from his ribs.

He only managed to take a single sip before the LOAD overtook him.  
\--

Sans stood still as a statue in a golden hall.

A few feet away was a human, staring directly at him with no expression at all.

Sans was glad of his iron control over his face, because without it he would have done the skeleton equivalent of visibly paling.

Somehow or other, perhaps because of whatever had happened when the human had struck him, he remembered the previous LOAD with perfect clarity. Fun. 

He didn’t say anything for a long moment.

“that expression you’re wearing…” They looked angry and guilty and afraid all at the same time. 

He didn’t see any real point in mentioning that, though. Not when both parties already knew.

“well, i won’t grace it with a description,”   
…

The knife slid through him just as quickly the second time, and he wondered if he’d still remember even if the anomaly RESET.

He prayed to any god that would listen to forget.

The human stood over him, and their face said that they were looking for something, and not finding it. They left the hall.  
\--

Sans stood still as a statue in a golden hall.

A few feet away was a human who looked so utterly exhausted that it showed even through their apathy.

Sans could relate, since this was the second time he’d been defeated, and the second time he’d remembered it.

He looked through them, his smile unchanging.

“that expression you’re wearing…” He wanted to cry and sob and hug his brother and beg for forgiveness for watching him turn to dust.

His smile stayed plastered on his face, because he couldn’t handle the effort required to go off script just then.

“you’re really kind of a freak, huh?” How did they deal with the pain of dying over and over again? Any normal person would probably be driven insane, but he could see how intact the human remained.

Takes one to know one, huh?  
…

“friendship... it’s really great, right? let’s quit fighting,” The anomaly paused, and, slowly, loosened their grip on the knife.

Then, wonder of wonders, they dropped it to the ground and kicked it away.  
He goggled at them.

“...you’re sparing me?” He couldn’t believe it. After all this, they were just stopping? Just like that? They’d killed almost every monster in the underground, coated their hands so thickly in dust that their original skin color wasn’t visible, and now they were finished?

Twice they’d sliced through his bones like he was made of wet clay and twice he’d watched them walk away afterward, seemingly unhindered, going on to Asgore.

Sans knew Asgore wasn’t killing them, because Asgore had confided in him earlier that day that he planned to try to talk things out without resorting to violence.

When he’d said it, with that earnest expression he always seemed to wear, Sans had carefully restrained the urge to laugh in his face.

Why did the human committing genocide against his people deserve the chance to change, when the other six hadn’t reached LV 4 between them?

Damn dirty coward.

“finally. buddy. pal. i know how hard it must be… to make that choice,” Sans did know. He had a long time policy of mercy first for his enemies. So many times, he’d spared someone, even when they were in the wrong.

He didn’t think this was all that similar, though. Context is everything, after all.

Regardless, he couldn’t completely hold down his hope. Only once before had they appeared to even consider the MERCY menu, and even then, they’d only spared it a longing glance.

This? Meant something.

“to go back on everything you’ve worked up to,” He could see in their eyes that this wasn’t an act of kindness. Wasn’t them miraculously realizing that there was another way.

This was an act of exhaustion, someone who just… didn’t care anymore. 

The kid was done.

“i want you to know… i won’t let it go to waste,” Sans wasn’t going to leave the underground like this, though. He wasn’t going to remain alone in the empty, dust filled caverns they’d made it into.

He refused.

“c’mere, pal,” They stepped closer, head bowed. They looked like they were on the gallows, and he supposed they were, in a way.

For a moment, both of them simply stood there, utterly still and silent as the grave. The kid took a deep breath in, and let it out slowly, the small puff of air the only sound in the hall.

He raised his hands, and an impenetrable wall of bones erupted from the tile. Several of them impaled the kid, and their eyes went wide in pain and shock. Slowly, they brought a hand to one that had impaled their chest, and looked down at it, seemingly uncomprehending.

It was a mirror to what Sans had done when they’d finally hit him.

They looked from their hand to him, the blood and dust on it mixing together until it was difficult for him to tell where one stopped and the other started.

He turned his gaze to Chara for the first time since they’d walked through the door. He hadn’t wanted to see them while the anomaly was killing, hadn’t wanted to see their face as they helped to commit genocide against the people they’d once called their own.

He hadn’t wanted to see them at all, really.

He looked now, though. He looked directly at them. They didn’t seem to be paying attention to him, instead looking at the anomaly. Their expression was shocked and horrified, like they’d just watched the death of their best friend.

Maybe they had.

Chara turned to him, and their eyes caught. He could see in their face that they understood, there at the end. It made sense that they would, he supposed. Chara had always understood consequences, and it was little surprise that that hadn’t changed.

He looked back at the anomaly, just in time to see their SOUL shatter into a million pieces.  
It wasn’t all that satisfying this time. Just necessary.

“geeettttttt dunked on!” He said the words like he was satisfied. He knew he should have been, having finally accomplished his goal, finally ended the killing, but he just felt empty.

He said the words like he was satisfied, but they sounded hollow even to his own hearing.

The next thing he said, though, carried every bit of hope he possessed.

“if we’re really friends… you won’t come back,” There was finalty in that. 

It felt like an ending.

The world RESET.  
\--

Sans woke up in Snowdin with hope fluttering in his chest.

Maybe this time, the kid would do the right thing. Maybe they’d ignore the FIGHT option the way that they were used to ignoring MERCY.

Perhaps they’d come through the Ruins door without a speck of dust on their hands, and turn their determination toward something more productive.

Or maybe not. Regardless…

It felt like a beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> I keep thinking about how a normal person could commit a genocide run, in universe. Like, what could motivate someone to do that? To eradicate an entire SPECIES of people?


End file.
